Welcomed by 7,000 cheering spectators, twro teams of trim, tense teen-agers marched into the huge Billy Sunday Tabernacle in Winona Lake, Ind. one evening last week. Like baseball fans, the crowd buzzed as the teams ran through warmups. Then, after prayer and a hymn, the championship play-offs in the Bible quiz, sponsored by Protestant, nondenominational Youth for Christ, got under way.
After a long, arduous competition that pitted 2,000 teams from the U.S., Canada and Latin America against each other, the contestants from Minneapolis and St. Louis, Mo. had reached the finals. The Minneapolis five wore blue, yellow and white uniforms, the St. Louis team red and white diamond-checkered outfits. Each contestant was to stay in his chair until sure of Quiz Master Jack Hamilton's question. The chairs were wired to a central dial; thus as contestants popped up, judges could be certain who was first.
Last week's quiz was limited to the King James version of Luke and Epistle to the Galatians, and so thoroughly did the contestants know their subject that often a single key word was enough to indicate both question and answer. As Hamilton slowly began, "How does one frustrate . . .", St. Louis' Captain Kruse was already on his feet. While his teammates silently prayed for him, he concentrated for 20 of the 30 seconds allotted him, then finished the question, ". . . frustrate the grace of God?" He went on to fire the correct answer (from Galatians 2:21): "By saying that righteousness come by the law instead of by grace."
A little later, St. Louis' Linda Fletcher missed a question. She jumped as soon as she heard Hamilton say, "According to verses 34 and 35, what five . . .", but she could not remember the rest of the question from Luke 11, i.e., "What five things did the Samaritan do for the man who fell among thieves?"* Undaunted, Linda redeemed her team's loss on the very next question: "Why did Jesus speak . . ." Said Linda, completing the question: ". . . in parables?" Her answer: "That seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand [Luke 8:10]."
Too fast for Minneapolis, St. Louis won by 60 points. Said the losers' captain. Bill Hollenbeck: "We learn from quizzing how to take Christ into all areas of our lives. We say, 'Come on, Christ, you take over.' We don't know how the answers come to us. We learn what a miracle it is when he comes into us and works through us. After we experience that in quizzing, we learn to live in complete submission to his will."
*Answer: went to him, bound up his wounds and poured oil and wine on him; set him on his own beast; brought him to an inn; took care of him; and on the next day provided money for the host to care for him.